The old, tired, failed call for socialism has been raised by Democrats again as a panacea for the problems of those who struggle financially.  Socialism has never worked as promised anywhere, and socialism has often created nightmares and impoverished once happy lands.  How, then, can anyone in politics with a straight face offer the stinking carcass of socialism as a cure for any of our nation's problems?

The answer is clear: Democrats proposing socialism in any of its myriad incarnations are phony and care nothing, really, about the poor at all.  In fact, curing poverty is the last thing these politicians want.  Creating resentment is what they seek.  If voters were happy and in control of their own prosperity, then who would need these Democrat candidates?  Indeed, who would need the political party to which these candidates belong?

If these Democrats were serious about wanting to end poverty by taxing unproductive wealth, then they would do and say things none of them is doing or saying today.  Instead, these Democrats and their party show breathtaking hypocrisy.  They do not even really want socialism.  They want only power.

Their hypocrisy shows up in several different ways.

First, Democrats seek not really to "redistribute wealth," but rather to keep Americans who are not now rich from entering the ranks of the rich.  The only way Americans who are not rich can become rich is through high levels of income, which usually means by working harder than other Americans or taking risks that more timid Americans avoid.  Imposing heftier taxes on income actually tends to protect the rich.

Second, nearly all of the Democrats who have tossed their hats in the ring for 2020 or who are likely to do so are within that category of the "already rich."  Indeed, most of these Democrats have net worths in the millions, and some of them are very rich, indeed.  Raising taxes on the income of those hardworking Americans trying to enter the same level of wealth as these Democrats already posses is defending the rich from rivals.

Third, if these Democrats felt that the income tax system is unfair and that the rich are paying too little, these Democrats could voluntarily forgo deductions, income-averaging, and other parts of the federal income tax system that allows an individual to pay less in taxes. 

Does anyone really doubt that all of these Democrats seeking their party's nomination have hired smart tax attorneys and done everything possible to minimize their tax own burdens?  While you cannot pay more in federal income tax than you owe, anyone can make a gift to the United States, as this Forbes article shows.  How many rich Democrat politicians in Washington do this?  None, apparently. 

We have some indication of how little Americans feel that they are under-taxed (whatever political squawking to the contrary they make) by the actual example of the "Tax Me More" option.  About twenty years ago, Arkansas created a "Tax Me More" option on the state income tax, which allows high-income taxpayers who felt they were not paying their fair share to voluntarily pay more.  Five people in Arkansas signed up for this and paid a whopping $260 in extra taxes. 

Fourth, even if income alone is the focus of Democrat socialist rhetoric, then surely the focus ought to be on those parts of America that have the highest income.  The top three counties  in income are next to Washington, D.C., and ten of the top twenty-five counties are in Virginia or Maryland, next to our nation's capital.

Fifth, and in many ways the most telling hypocrisy, is that the wealth of these rich Democrats running for president as "socialists" comes not from creating goods and services, healing the sick, or any truly productive activity.

Instead, these Democrat politicians got rich by manipulating a system that they themselves created and controlled.  They voted their own salaries and benefits as members of Congress.  They earned huge compensation as ridiculously overpriced law professors.  Or they earned obscenely high advance royalties on books that scarcely merited a cursory review, as did Bernie Sanders, who got a $795,000 advance.

Who really believes in socialism?  No one, especially not the hucksters and con artists of the Democratic Party leadership, who simply use the call for socialism as a way of protecting their power and feathering their nests.